Monthly Archives: December 2013

Economic Growth Rates

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The folks at Power Line addressed this in Presidential term aggregates; I thought I’d graph the GDP rates in each year of the last five Presidents’ terms.  The data for the graph were collected from here.

Aside from the fact that economic growth is poorer in Obama’s administration than it was in any of the preceding four Presidents’ terms, stretching back over 32 years, President Barack Obama’s performance year by year (first year compared to each of the others’ first year, second year compared to second year, and so on) generally has been poorer, also.  It’s certainly true that Obama’s first year was a continuation of President George Bush the Younger’s last, but so has each of those Presidents’ first years been continuations of their predecessors’ last years.  And President Ronald Reagan’s first year was a continuation of President Jimmie Carter’s last year—which was 3.8 points lower at 8.8% and declining from Carter’s prior years.

This also contrasts with Obama’s predecessors having had to work with the opposing political party controlling at least one house of Congress for significant portions of their terms, just as Obama has done.  Those Presidents, though, sought implementable bipartisan solutions rather than Obama’s “my way or no way” and “evil, obstructionist Republicans” attitudes.

Farm Subsidies and False Premises

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Negotiators [on a proposed milk price support bill] are…working out how farm subsidies should be restructured in the absence of a traditional subsidy called direct payments, which are paid to farmer regardless of crop price or crop yield.  Both chambers’ bills would eliminate this $5 billion annual subsidy in response to critics who say it pays farmers not to farm.  But they have argued over how to replace those payments, with major farm groups squabbling over whether subsidies should kick in based on crop prices or farmer revenue, and how to count the acreage on which the subsidies are based.

Unfortunately for our pocketbooks, those negotiators are operating from a false premise: that the subsidies need to be revised in any way.  The only ones who benefit from these subsidies in any large way are the large agribusinesses and the “farm state” politicians supported by them.  Mom and pop farms?  Not so much.  On top of that, though, us food eaters are materially harmed by the subsidies through the artificially inflated prices we have to pay for food that those subsidies create.  And the poor among us are harmed the most by those inflated prices.  Additionally, us taxpayers are harmed a second—and third—time by having to pay for those subsidies that are driving our prices up and by having to pay for the food stamps that are used to mitigate for the poor those artificially inflated prices.

No.  The subsidies need to be done away with: “replace” them altogether through a bill that eliminates all of the farm subsidies, which ding us for $25 billion annually.  That seed then lets the much larger $80 billion/yr food stamp program to be drastically reduced, if not eliminated altogether, since most of those remaining who truly need help would generally be within the resources of their local communities and states.

The Progressive View of the Law

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We’re well familiar with President Barack Obama’s view of the law: it’s just a political guideline, which he’ll enforce—or not—at convenience.  See Obamacare and its Employer Mandate and Cancelled Insurance Policies, for instance.

Here’s another example.  Covered California, California’s state-run ObamaMart, has given out personal contact data—names, addresses, phone numbers, email addresses—on tens of thousands of Californians who went to the CC site just to check out coverage possibilities.  None of these browsers had given permission to release these personal data in any way, shape, or form.  Nevertheless, these data were given to insurance brokers, among others, so those brokers could cold call this additional list of sales pitch spam victims.

For what purpose this egregious invasion of privacy?  Covered California Executive Director, Peter Lee, insisted with a straight face that “insurance” buyers needed help making the 23 December deadline for coverage that begins 1 January, and that he knew better how to do that—no need to obey privacy laws in the face of his higher purpose (although Lee insists that no privacy laws were harmed in the making of this move).

Lee did this while also saying

I can imagine some people may be upset[.]

Well, NSS.  But never mind about that.  Lee and his Progressive-controlled State Government employer know better (he is, after all, still on the payroll after this; that state’s government plainly agrees with his move); privacy laws are just guidelines.

As to CC’s claims that no other data were released, one victim of a spam email from one of those brokers wonders “what other details on his application were shared with the agent.”  Indeed.  What else still is being covered up?

So much for rule of law in Progressive administrations.

Idle Chit-Chat

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On the People’s Republic Of China’s new Air Defense Identification Zone (which the PRC demands that all aircraft intending to fly through it check in with the Chinese government first), an airspace grab that goes with its grab of the East China Sea below, the Obama administration has had this response.

National security spokesman Patrick Ventrell:

pointed to White House press secretary Jay Carney’s remark that “the US government does not accept or recognize China’s newly declared” defense zone.

State Department spokesman Marie Harf:

[W]e’ve been very clear that we’ve called on China not to implement the ADIZ, and we’ll continue to do so.

JCS Chairman Martin Dempsey:

So it wasn’t the declaration of the ADIZ that actually was destabilizing.  It was their assertion that they would cause all aircraft entering the ADIZ to report regardless of whether they were intending to enter into the sovereign airspace of China. And that is destabilizing.

Vice President Joe Biden:

the US is “deeply concerned.”

And

crisis management mechanisms and effective channels of communication between China and Japan to reduce the risk of escalation.

President Barack Obama:

Not even that much.

PRC President Xi Jinping:

…took on board what the Vice President laid out….

Yeah.  We showed ’em.

The Next Democratic Party Government Shutdown

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…is shaping up.  Never mind that a budget deal might actually otherwise be beginning to come together; many in the Democratic Party leadership are perfectly willing to shut down the government if they don’t get their way.  Again.

And in so many words.  House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D, MD) opposes even a continuing resolution to keep government funded if it doesn’t address the existing sequestration cut schedule.  But he won’t offer spending cuts elsewhere to offset them—just increase the damned spending.  House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D, CA) has said she’ll oppose any sort of budget deal that doesn’t include an extension to unemployment benefits to pay folks for not working (which also is her tacit admission that President Barack Obama’s economic policies have been a dismal failure these past five years).

The House Democratic Party leadership’s colleagues in the Senate, where any deal can be blown up and the government shut down by the Democrat majority, are being cagily silent.  Here it comes.